My beloved brethren, I stop before these depths; we have spoken enough of Adam's sin; let us now speak of our own sins. Ah! let us remember that, if we suffer for the sin that defiled the earth, it is for our own sins we shall be condemned. Let us remember, that if" by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, that death hath reigned over all men, for that all have sinned.” All have sinned! This is what the word of eternal truth declares to us; this is what our conscience cries to us; this is what every glance which we cast at our own life proclaims to us. O let us feel, let us deplore our sins with as much grief, regret, bitterness, and repentance, as Adam must have felt, when he was banished from Eden! Let us weep over our miseries; let us trample under foot that odious pride which would hide them from our eyes, and keep us from repentance, humiliation, and the feeling of our tremendous responsibility. Let us reject with horror the insinuation of the perfidious enemy, who tells us, Ye shall not die, and promises us, as he did to Eve, the fatal recompense of pride and contempt of the divine law. Let us humble ourselves together before our God; then . . .

Oh, happiness! after having shown the evil, we can, on the part of God, offer you the remedy. Happy ministers of the new covenant, we can, we ought to direct your thoughts and your hopes, no longer to Eden, closed against you, and under a curse, but to Calvary, where "dies for us the second Adam," where rises the tree of life, where "the blood of Christ speaketh to us better things than the blood of Abel." There, my brethren, you who believe in the Son of God for life, there, on our behalf, a blessing succeeds to the curse, pardon to chastisement, life to death. Hear this substitution of grace. for chastisement proclaimed by the Word of God; For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. But, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."*

Rom. v. 15. 19-21.

This day, another voice is once more lifted up in this house of God, to proclaim to us this cheering and precious truth. This day, the great Repairer of sin offers Himself to us, with all the fruits of His sacrifice, and His death, pardon, the riches of His grace, and the treasures of eternal life.* Immortal beings, sinful men, hasten, while life is offered to you, lay hold on life! O house of Israel, why will ye die!

Thanks and praise unto Thee, O my God, for having found so effectual a remedy for our woes! Praise unto Thee for bringing to us blessing and life, instead of condemnation and death. Praise unto Thee for having drawn us out of the depths of misery, to make us objects of Thine infinite compassion, children of Thy love, and heirs of eternal happiness!

* This Discourse was preached on a Sacrament Sunday,T

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MEDITATION IV.

MAN A SINNER. THE VOICE OF THE LORD.— GOD IS SLOW TO ANGER.

GEN. III. 7-10.

"And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked: and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

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And the Lord called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden; and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."

THERE is not, perhaps, in the paths of crime, a more dreadful moment than that which immediately follows one of those actions, which call down upon their author the whole vengeance of the law. The crime is committed; the blood has flowed under the murderous hand; all the powers of the universe are not

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sufficient to repair the evil which a moment has effected. The torments of remorse agitate the breast of the criminal, who abhors his deed; the frightful consequences which it brings after it, assail, like phantoms, his imagination, scared with gloomy terrors, and already, perhaps, showing him in the distance the horrid instrument of an ignominious death. Such now appear to us the first man and his companion, lately so happy, but whom we have seen trampling under foot the solemn command of God, and calling down upon their guilty heads the terrible sanction of that command, death! Are we now called to the painful task of unfolding to you, this day, this sentence of malediction? Is it going to fall, like a thunder-clap, upon man after his sin? No! we have to acknowledge, in all things, a God "slow to anger."

His justice offended, He will not hold the sinner guiltless; but He is pleased to leave sin time to produce its bitter fruits, that man, humbled for his crime and his folly, may have the time and the desire to see, through the gloomy cloud which shuts up within it the maledictions of the Most High, a ray of hope that may encourage him, and lead him